Others Summon, I Forge Beast Armor

”Very well, Lucy. I’ll have to thank you for saving me again. It’s funny how little we know each other, yet you’ve helped me so much. I’ll leave you to your training and return to the city.”

Lucy’s heart twisted, and her body shivered too.

She wanted Luke to leave the castle, but she didn’t want him to leave yet, too. She liked having him around, even if being around him made her nervous.

Maybe one last effort could keep him another night.

Her father had already done the worst by telling Luke that she liked him. What more could she lose now?

”What if the Bureau arrests you again? You’re at the top of the leaderboard by a big margin. You should rest today. I am too...”

Luke turned around with a smirk.

”That makes two of us, Lucy! I’m not fighting today.”

Lucy noticed she had stretched out her hand as if calling him back like he was a Messiah. She wished the ground would open and swallow her again.

Her legs got weak, and she fell to the floor. Using Echo, she grew extra legs and helped herself back up, awkwardness suffocating the bailey.

”So... where are you going then?” she finally asked.

”Business,” Luke answered firmly. ”But that doesn’t mean I won’t throw a punch if I see some monsters. I may be at the top, but I could be usurped in the blink of an eye.”

Lucy widened her eyes as she remembered Prince Derek’s reaction when Luke got all those points to take the lead. Derek looked like he was going to do anything to get back to the top. So, Luke was right.

”Yes. You should get going,” Lucy said. ”For me. I’ll fight tomorrow.”

Luke turned around to leave, wondering why Lucy appeared restless.

While he turned, the Malefic Spider got his attention again, so he looked over his shoulder.

The beast was preposterous, nothing like anything he had ever seen.

When Lucy awakened the spider, it was the strongest Elder beast of her generation, but a lot had changed since then. Raven’s Crimson Hellhound had taken that title because the Malefic Spider was handicapped.

But in a fight between Lucy and Raven’s summons, Luke would place his bet on the Malefic Spider.

He didn’t know why. It just felt like the beast was very powerful.

If Lucy can find out what’s wrong and get it to continue growing again, maybe you’ll see the sense in Luke’s observations.

”By the way,” Luke said to Lucy, ”beasts might not be human, but they are still part of you. They share your soul, and that makes the relationship between a summoner and their beast very special. You might not think of them as family, but they are still you.

If you’re going to share your soul with something, you shouldn’t treat it like a stranger.”

”A—Are you sure of what you’re saying?” Lucy stammered. ”You don’t even have a beast.”

”Sigh, you’re right,” Luke replied with a shrug. ”But I had a family who loved their beasts, and they are among the strongest summoners in the city. In fact, as children, we were taught that a personal bond influences the growth of your beast.

You should try creating a bond with your spider, starting by naming it at least.”

Luke looked at the spider one more time, then turned away and began walking with nothing left to say to Lucy.

Lucy was left standing while his words echoed in her ears.

Luke was right, but since she had grown up in a family that didn’t share his ideology, it’d take her time to adjust.

It’d even take her spider time to adjust.

There’s difference between contract and bond. Lucy’s contract with her spider was great. Dominion-rank.

But their bond was so bad that...

After Luke lectured Lucy, the spider thought Lucy would discipline it for causing Luke to lecture her, so it backed away from her slowly.

*********

New Florence was the most bustling city in the world and the only habitable city in Country 1.

Shops, cars, companies, and apartment buildings were everywhere. Ads were being broadcast here, and a cabbage seller was waving there, a civilization with every living class.

Also, the modernity of the city was mixed with the resources gotten from the apocalypse. That was why there were spires, bridges, canals, and obelisks a stone’s throw from each other.

Surprisingly, if you asked most humans, they preferred this life.

They had homes, jobs, food, and entertainment. Why bother fighting the apocalypse when there was now a comfortable place to live in?

And that was the mindset the apocalypse was counting on to erase everyone.

Luckily, some humans are the opposite, willing to use their summons to fight, to grow, and to evolve. Even some who don’t awaken a beast would try to purchase one and tame them manually to help.

On the streets, you could see them. Hunters. Walking with their beasts, helping people, and ready to interact with any monster that appeared

Luke was part of the bustle, searching for a good place to meet Lin Moon.

Before he came on the streets, Luke stopped by a hospital and donated the Queen Womb Pearl item to their maternity department.

He didn’t need it, but another boy or girl did.

His own mother died at birth, and Luke knew what it was like for a child to grow up without a mother, so if one woman could be given a chance to remain beside her child, he saw no reason to keep the pearl for himself.

His phone soon received a message from Scarlett asking where he was so she could see him and make sure he was fine.

Luke told her not to worry, but Scarlett thought he was under some kind of pressure to lie.

So, she kept asking questions until Luke assured her that he was fine and was in the city looking for an ally.

Once sure he was safe, Scarlett told him she would spend the day networking and trying to find the location of the Black Sun Origin Realm so they could enter it for their trial.

Luke supported her, but he didn’t like the sound of that.

If not for Scarlett, he wouldn’t have accepted that invitation in the first place.

It felt like a quest he didn’t need. He could still level up without going somewhere that dangerous.

But Scarlett was too dedicated and proud to give up, and at least she had a reason for doing it. She wanted to understand the apocalypse through the Origin Realm since the fight with the Hundred-Eye Crow was a sign of what was to come.

Luke was thinking about this when he noticed three hunters coming from the other side of the sidewalk.

They were a few years older than him, likely recent graduates, which explained why they were roaming around the city. That was normal for rookie hunters trying to gain experience.

One had brown hair, another had magenta hair, and the third had purple hair. Their alloys reflected the sunlight, showing that they were Bronze-ranked and Luke had nothing to fear.

But he ducked into an alley before they could cross paths, and waited until they passed before poking his head out again to make sure they were gone.

”I recognize the guy with the purple hair. He’s from the Prescott family under the Kingsleys.”

What if that guy recognized him too and alerted his aunt?

Luke realized that although his name wasn’t pasted on public notice, he was a wanted man by the Kingsleys, the family that owned the city.

Roselyn must be looking for him after losing him at the Bureau, where she could have gotten him easily.

This only made Luke more eager to establish himself socially and stop being treated like a fugitive in the city he had grown up in.

Luke entered a teashop and paid the attendant three times the price for his drink, just to put her in his favor in case something happened.

After, he chose a seat away from the windows and waited for Lin Moon.

While waiting, Luke checked Amigo’s progress in the River of Evolution.

It had been a while since his last update, but that was because the further Amigo progressed, the longer each milestone became.

The system informed that Amigo was still in the Invertebrate Era, but he had evolved from Primitive Crab into an organism called River Scavenger.

River Scavenger was the final organism of the Invertebrate Era before Amigo could enter the Fish Age.

After that came the first organisms that walked on land, followed by the Reptile Age before Amigo could call himself a turtle again.

But he would have to cultivate before becoming an Astral Tortoiseling because that was different.

The complexity and structure of evolving a forgotten Mythic beast from the Yggrin Era excited Luke too much. He couldn’t believe Amigo was only one of the many Mythic beasts he could take on this magical journey with.

He wanted another beast to father.

Looking around the teashop, Luke made sure no one was watching before entering his soul space, where his furnace had been ever burning.

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A/N: 100 chaps! Thanks for read this far! Kindly support with powerstones and if you want a mass release, you can gift a super gift